Planting seeds of papercrafting creativity.

Archive for August, 2012

My girly-girl has a birthday coming up on Sunday! She wants to go to Paris when she graduates; fortunately, that’s still several years away so we have time to save our pennies for the trip (and that’s where the Paris-theme for her birthday card came from). 🙂

I am so pleased with how this card turned out — I love vintage-inspired cards, tags and altered books but it’s difficult for me to work that style into my own cards; however, this card came together pretty much like I imagined it in my head. There’s a TON of Dazzling Details on this card and the photo just does not show it — there’s glitter around the embossed panel, the scalloped panel, the rose panel, the flower layers and the butterfly. And to top it all off, I sprayed the whole card with Vanilla Shimmer Smooch Spritz. Several of the images were embossed with SU!’s new Early Espresso Embossing Powder — love the rich color! To create the flower, I punched five scalloped circles with the 1-3/4″ Scallop Punch; sponged Pink Pirouette, Crumb Cake and Early Espresso ink on them; with all five layers together, attached the brad; crumpled up the flowers and then smoothed them out. You can click on the photo to get a close-up shot of the details.

VERY late birthday card for my nephew and a complete CASE of Kelly Lunceford’s awesome card found here. Kelly is an amazingly talented stamper — her gallery is one I always look through when I need inspiration. She has a gift for creating eye-catching, balanced layouts and combining lovely patterns and colors in her artwork.

I was able to visit my nephew and his family in North Dakota last spring and we all visited the State Capitol while I was there. They have this magnificent, life-sized statue of a buffalo made out of what looks like rebar. Here’s a picture (quality not so good — taken with my iPhone):

Welcome to the August Control Freaks Blog Tour! Our theme this month is “Back to School” projects. If you’re following the blog tour lineup, you’ve just come from Wendy Weixler’s blog. She is so creative — her projects ALWAYS amaze me!

The back to school theme was easy for me — I have a daughter who’s just entered middle school. She got a new backpack (LL Bean’s Huckleberry Plaid) and I created my projects based on the color scheme of that backpack (navy, purple and pink).

PROJECT #1 – Altered CD Case

I altered a CD case that holds a notepad, pen and bookmark that my daughter can slip in her backpack and use at school. The colors are a little crazy — but I tried to use colors that matched her backpack and Night of Navy, Rich Razzleberry and Pink Pirouette came the closest. The dimensions for the front insert (navy polka-dotted DSP) are 10-1/2″ x 7″.

Here’s a shot of the inside of the case:

The dimensions for the inside insert (navy striped DSP) are the same as the front: 10-1/2″ x 7″. For the pocket, I cut a piece of Rich Razzleberry cardstock that measures 5-1/16″ x 3″ and then cut one edge on the diagonal (the right side of the pocket measures 1-1/2″ up from the bottom of the pocket). The pen holder is a 1-1/2″ x 2″ piece of the thin cardboard backing found in SU!’s DSP 12×12 paper packs. I covered this cardboard with a 1-1/2″ x 2″ piece of DSP. I scored this piece at 7/16″, 7/8″, 1-5/16″ and 1-3/4″ and then folded it into a sort of “tube”, sealed one edge, and then attached it to the case with a Stampin’ Dimensional. The base of the tag (Pink Pirouette) measures 2-5/8″ x 4-5/8″. The notepad measures 6-1/2″ x 2-1/2″ (I purchased it a couple of years ago from PaperTrey Ink) and it is actually longer than 6-1/2″, but I trimmed this one to fit inside the CD case. The insert inside the RSVP pen is a piece of DSP that measures 3-1/4″ x 1″.

My second project is an altered water bottle to match — she is definitely going to be STYLIN’! 😉 I was inspired by the water bottle in SU!’s current catalog, but once again used the wild colors from my daughter’s backpack.

The DSP that wraps around the bottle measures 2-1/2″ x 9-1/2″. The tag measures 1-3/4″ x 6-1/2 and is scored at 2″. I used the 1-1/4″ Circle Punch to punch the hole in the top of the tag.

Another masculine birthday card — this one’s for my husband. I spotted this color combo on the Color Coach and thought it would work great with the nautical theme I was aiming for. I really like the colors together!

My son’s birthday is coming up and he loves wolves so this image from the retired set In Wildernesswas perfect for a birthday card! I stamped the wolf first, placed a mask over the image, then punched a 1-1/4″ circle out of a Post-it note and placed it near the wolf’s head and sponged More Mustard ink in the circle for the “moon” effect.